More in Movies »

HOME VIDEO

HOME VIDEO; Older Films Out on DVD

By Peter M. Nichols

Published: November 29, 2002

As always, recent DVD releases are all over the spectrum. Special editions of older films have been especially rich of late, with ''Roman Holiday'' and ''Sunset Boulevard'' from Paramount and, perhaps the best of these ''classics'' packages, ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1992) from Artisan. Maybe current economic uncertainty fans the perception, but it's more electrifying than ever to find Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris and Al Pacino sweating in the same real estate office in James Foley's film, adapted by David Mamet from his play. Blake (Alec Baldwin), the slave master boss with the gold Rolex, hasn't gotten any nicer, either. Mr. Foley's lively commentary is a fine addition.

A smaller film with interesting commentary, Rebecca Miller's ''Angela'' (1996), was released on VHS and DVD Tuesday by New Video. Ms. Miller's new film, ''Personal Velocity,'' a triptych telling the stories of three women (Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk), opened to good reviews last Friday. ''Angela,'' about a 10-year-old girl and her 6-year-old sister dealing with their mother's manic depression, was Ms. Miller's first feature. ''Its early scenes beautifully capture a childhood intuition of a world where boogeymen lurk and angels hover,'' Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times.

Next Tuesday, Fox is to release ''My Neighbor Totoro'' (1988), an animated feature by the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, which in turn has something of a connection to ''Lilo and Stitch,'' to be issued the same day by Disney. Like ''Angela,'' both films are about sisters coping with real and potential loss of parents. In ''Lilo and Stitch,'' A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times, ''the early science-fiction sequences, with their bright colors, whimsical characters and sublime sense of scale, show the influence of Japanese anime, but with the highly articulated, computer-assisted movements that have long been a Disney hallmark.''

Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders, co-directors of ''Lilo and Stitch,'' acknowledge the influence of ''Totoro'' and its director, Mr. Miyazaki, whose much acclaimed ''Spirited Away,'' is now in theaters. ''We loved the portrayal of the sisters,'' Mr. Deblois said in an interview, ''the whimsical balancing with the realistic.''

''Lilo and Stitch'' abandoned 3-D computer-generated animation now prevalent in films like ''Shrek'' and ''Monsters, Inc.'' for the old-fashioned warmer look of past features. Some critics would say that drawn animation is flat and insubstantial by comparison. But that could enhance an intimate story, not undermine it. ''Hardly a work of state-of-the-art virtuosity, but rather an example of quiet confident craftsmanship that tells a sweet, charming tale of intergalactic friendship,'' Mr. Scott wrote of ''Lilo and Stitch.''

Mr. Sanders said in an interview that he and Mr. Deblois found some Disney films ''stylistically beautiful and technically perfect'' but a ''little bit cool'' in relating to the audience. ''We wanted a film that was a whole lot simpler, with emphasis on character and story, and we also wanted to create a certain amount of story freedom by keeping costs down,'' he said. ''One way to do this was to design a film that was 2-D friendly.''

Photo: The Disney characters Lilo (right) and Stitch buck current trends in animation; they are portrayed in simpler, old-fashioned 2-D. (Disney Enterprises)